“I found Bob”
I stared at the dark ceiling above my bed trying to collect my thoughts. My heart beat abnormally fast and I still felt the urge to flee - I had dreamt I was a Time-runner.
I was in my bed, in my apartment, on the fifty-third floor of a completed mega block. The broken windows were boarded up, but I had splashed out on proper door locks so the tiny apartment was secure and there was no need for a separate lean-to inside. I could still see the dull glow from the ashes of the brazier in the other room.
Ava had volunteered to follow the money trail, so I teamed her up with Naz, since they knew each other already.
Naz, a wiry young guy, had rocked up at the office with a crate of computer equipment: laptops, servers, modems, and his own power-packs. Items he claimed to had scavenged from a disused government facility.
Naz grinned while he connected all the equipment. “Don’t you go worrying none Amigo, Ava is the best Skip Jacker I know. We’ll soon track down that money.” He laughed wickedly. “Man, there ain’t nuthin’ she can’t hack but the blockchain itself. An’ you thought she was a hooker?”
“I think we done that joke already.”
“There ain’t no one touches Ava wiv’out her permission, Naz laughed, “Not if they wants to keep their limbs.”
“And she looks so cute.”
Another grin. “You don’t know too many hackers, do you, Amigo.”
I rolled over in bed and reached for the com implanted in my neck. “You found Bob, Ava? Where?”
“Not ‘where’, ‘who’. You got to get over here and have a look at this.”
I sat up in bed, trying to focus my mind. It was only two in the morning, no way I wanted to leave my bed now. “Can’t you just tell me?”
“Not over the com, it’s too dangerous. You need to get down here right now.” She cut me off.
Something about the tone of Ava’s voice made me get up. Hastily I drag on some clothes and exited my apartment.
The streets were largely deserted that night. The few remaining street lamps lit pools of light in the misty dark. Overhead, maglift freeways dripped larger drops on the unwary.
I turned up the collar of my trench coat, to keep out the mist and navigated the deserted streets. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of a star peeking between the upper decks of the city.
Bleary eyed I stomp into the office, to be greeted by the autobot.
“Good morning, please take a seat, the detective knows you are here and will call you shortly.”
“Oh shut up.”
Inside, I demanded to know what urgent enough to get me out of bed at two in the morning.
Ava sat me down with a hot drink. It was meant to be coffee, but it was the cheap stuff, something called, covfefe, that only vaguely tasted like coffee. It wasn’t the good stuff I gave to my clients.
Ava launched into her story. “We'd been following the money trail, when we discovered grandpa George had this odd source of income. Each month, different amounts of Time would appeared in his Time wallet as if by magic.”
I knew what that meant. “Time running.”
“Exactly. Just before each transaction, he would spend a lot of time on this platform on the dark web called Steemit. We tried to access this account, but without knowing his password or access code it was useless. Then we had a breakthrough. I discovered the access needed a sixteen digit hexadecimal number.”
I caught on immediately. “The letter, from George, addressed to you.”
“Exactly, a sixteen digit hexadecimal access code, user name Bob. Bingo, we were in.”
I was beginning to yawn by this stage, so I just asked them what they had discovered.
“Grandpa George was using,” Ava paused dramatically, “an alternative crypto currency. Something called Steem.”
“Never heard of it.” They actually got me out of bed to tell me this. “So what’s the punch line?”
Naz leaned across the desk. “Of course you haven't heard of it, Amigo. Why would the Time Guardians let you know there’s a rival crypto currency in circulation.”
My brain did a back flip and kicked me awake. “Back up a moment. Did you just say there’s a rival crypto currency to Time?”
Ava and Naz nodded in unison.
“And it still exists?”
They nodded again.
Wow, this was huge. “And it’s legal tender?”
Ava laughed. “There is only one legal currency and that his Time.
“So grandpa George was dealing in an illegal currency.”
More nod. Clearly I was catching up. “And so were his friends. And so was Poppy.”
Two blank stares. “Who’s Poppy?”
That’s when I remembered I hadn’t filled them in on my discoveries. From my coat I fished out the letters from Georges friends, all addressed to Ava.
While we rip open the envelopes, I filled in Ava and Naz on the disappearance of the elderlies and recounted Poppy’s story. Each envelope contained a six-diget hexadecimal code and a name.
Eagerly, we typed in the names and codes. All George’s friends had Steem accounts on the same dark web platform, Steemit.
Naz leaped from his seat. “They’re all Whales, you’re rich, Ava.”
I had never heard this term before. “What is a Whale? I’m guessing it’s not a fish.”
Ava ignored us and continued tapping away on her virtual keyboard.
Naz gave me a withering look. “Whales ain’t fish, man, they’re mammals.” He waited, in vain, for my response, before plowing on. “You familiar with the concept of a Time Lord? Someone who can influence the blockchain if they hold a lot of Time? Well on this platform, it’s the same concept, but they’re called Whales.”
“Oh, like large fish,” I said deliberately.
Naz grimaced. “Ava’s rich, Amigo.”
Something didn’t square up. “George and his friends didn’t look rich.”
Ava looked up from her keyboard. “That’s because they couldn’t spend it. What is the point of being rich if you can’t spend your money?”
We checked George’s Steem wallet and discovered withdrawals corresponding to the same dates as his Time deposits.
Naz started pacing excitely. “If George could convert Steem to Time, there must be a whole network of people secretly trading in Steem instead of Time. You know what that means don’t you.”
He ignored our blank stares. “There’s a resistance!”
That was just about the craziest most dangerous thing I had ever heard. Then I remembered George’s crucified body, the blood in Mohamed’s lean-to, Mahalia’s abandoned suitcase, and Poppy’s disappearance. This wasn’t a game; this was deadly serious. We had just landed, smack-bang. in the middle of a crypto currency turf war.
“Oh Shit!” Ava had found a last message from George. It was dated the day of his disappearance, and addressed to all his friends. The message consisted of five words:
‘Time Keepers, on the blockchain.’
An alarm blared from the server. Virtual computer screens flashed red. Ava bolted from her seat and disconnected her computer. “Shit, shit, shit! Time Keepers, they’re on to us.”
Naz started scooping equipment into his crate without even unplugging it. “We got forty seconds. Grab what you can and run!”
